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with Greek yogurt

Today is day zero of my ~diet~. I feel like if I mention it here, I will be held more accountable than if I pretended that I didn’t care. I basically just need to kickstart myself to get back on track, and by back on track I mean not thinking that it’s okay to have dinner and then go to a bar for French fries afterward, or to come home from a day of non-stop snacking and order a bunch of Vietnamese food at 10:30pm. But that’s just me. We all have our demons. I feel like if I do this for three days, then I’ll maybe not want to ruin it with a burger by the end. You never know, though. Humans do crazy things. Anyway, what I’m doing is essentially fasting for three days. I can have all of the black coffee, tea, water and seltzer that I want, as well as all of the vegetable, chicken or beef stock that I want. How exciting. I don’t want any of that. I don’t even like black coffee – I like a nice, creamy cortado or even just a good cup of pour-over made at home with a few splashes of whole milk. Waaaah. Thankfully, a friend at work is heading on this insane journey with me, and Kramer starts his tomorrow. Kramer and I did this once in college and it really worked, but I feel like I might just have less will power now. Plus, I’m older and I care much less about how society thinks I look in my jeans. I just want to be comfortable in my jeans and not have to buy new jeans. We’re just trying to maintain some semblance of youth here, that’s all. Next stop: wrinkle cream, chemical peels and botox injections. Honestly, you think that you’re supposed to still feel young and energetic at 25, but whoever cultivated that myth is very, very wrong. Whatever, I can do this! My friend and I are going to go see Captain America: The Winter Soldier tonight to keep ourselves distracted. Chris Evans, you’re my only hope.

Post office boxes, movie night at my house, a grapefruit, bourbon and coffee cocktail at The Bearded Lady and the counter at Eisenberg’s.

So, this weekend, I knew that the end was nigh so I treated myself. On Friday night, we had some friends over for what was supposed to be movie night, but what ended up just being some cool dudes hanging out in my apartment, with a game or two of Catch Phrase thrown in for good measure. I bought some nice meats and cheese from Eataly, and I may or may not have had a couple of pieces of the delicious semolina baguettes that I also purchased. On Saturday, Kramer and I got up early-ish and I did some yoga and cleaned up a bit while Kramer worked on his homework, then we headed out to meet some friends in Prospect Park. I figured, what the hell, let’s do this thing! So we picked up some cheese and another baguette from the farmer’s market before enjoying the outdoors for a few hours. There may or may not have been white wine involved, but who’s to say? It was a little windy, but I was just so happy to see the sun that I didn’t care. After the park, we stopped by The Bearded Lady for a couple of cocktails before Kramer and I went home and demolished some previously mentioned Vietnamese food from Falansai. On Sunday, we got up and did the usual (although I opted for a smoothie for breakfast because of the late night eating guilt from the night before), then met up with one of my previous bosses and her husband in our neighborhood. Their son got into a really good high school near us, and they wanted someone to show them around. Kramer and I love just walking around, so we were excited to give the tour. We probably walked three or four miles that day, stopping for a Peroni at Union Pizza Works, enjoying the street art from The Bushwick Collective, and finally chowing down on a phenomenal meal from Glasserie. This was the best “last meal” before my diet. We had chilled, crisp white wine alongside bright red snapper crudo, melt-in-your-mouth sous vide steak, lamb tartar, roasted cauliflower with soft cheese, grilled radishes with creamy feta, griddle bread with tahini and lovely stuffed onions and ramps. To top it all off, we had a chocolate tart with sesame caramel and some kind of insanely delicious almond pastry dish with a vanilla pastry cream. What a treat. Kramer and I had stars in our eyes after that meal, for sure.

On Sunday, I made these muffins to get rid of the Greek yogurt that I had in my fridge, which surprisingly enough has a lot of carbohydrates and is off the menu on my new eating path. I love grapefruit this time of year, and I probably eat at like 2 or 3 a week without getting sick of them. The bright, slightly tart but still sweet fruit is one of my favorite parts about the limbo between winter and spring. I had one left in my refrigerator, and again, fruit is off the table for a while for me, so I threw that into these muffins as well. If you love grapefruit, these muffins are definitely for you. The yogurt gave them a wonderfully soft, moist crumb, and but the grapefruit still really shines through. I was worried that these would be a bit dry because I was using 0% yogurt instead of full fat, but they were absolutely perfect. Kramer ate two, and my coworkers all seemed to enjoy them. These are a simple breakfast treat, but the grapefruit will wake you up and get you going for the day. Best of all, these will keep well at room temperature for up to four days, and they’ll freeze even better.

Just hanging out.

Combine your zest and sugar until the sugar has turned a light yellow or pink color.

Once you have your batter together, fold in the chopped grapefruit.

Divide the batter evenly among your muffin cups, and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Combine your sugar and grapefruit zest in the bowl of your mixer, and beat together until the sugar is a light yellow or pink (depending on the brightness of your zest), about 1 minute. Add in the eggs, one at a time, then add in the yogurt and olive oil, beating until combined. Add in the vanilla and beat until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together your flour, baking powder and salt. Add the flour mixture to the batter and beat until just moistened, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Fold in the chopped grapefruit (it will fall apart a bit, don't worry about it, you want to spread the grapefruit out in the batter, anyway).

I did not have any muffin liners, so I just used 1-2 tablespoons of butter to really grease 24 muffin cups well. If you want to use muffin liners, please feel free, but I really think the butter added a little something to the muffins. Anyway, prepare 2 muffin tins and divide the batter evenly among the 24 cups (if you're using liners, you may have closer to 30 muffins).

Bake for 25-30 minutes or so, until the sides of the muffins are just starting to turn golden brown and the tops are set. Allow to cool for 20 minutes in the pans before using a knife (if needed) to gently wiggle the muffins out of the tins. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired. These will keep well in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days (although the powdered sugar will be absorbed by the moisture of the muffins, so you may need to re-sprinkle for presentation's sake).

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7 Responses

I started Weight Watchers a week ago tomorrow- that’s the only way for me. I’ve got WAY more than a muffin top and I refuse to buy a bigger size in jeans…or any clothes. Just sick of how I look. With this past winter, I stayed in and ATE MY WAY thru December – March! WOOT WOOT! PS I don’t even feel like I’ve lost even a pound on my first week and I’m eating WAY LESS calories. Oh well. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow!

These look delicious. Like everything on your blog I can’t eat sugar. Have you tried the recipe with honey or alternate? I’d love to try these muffins. Grapefruit is way underrated! Thanks for sharing your love of food and recipes with us.

Hi Lindsey – I think you could absolutely make these with coconut sugar or maybe even pureed banana! You may need to add a bit more flour to compensate – just look at the batter. It should look like a slightly thicker cake batter, but still runny enough to not be cookie dough.

[…] and low fat/low carb/whatever. I had a big tub of Greek yogurt in my fridge (clearly, judging from my last post), and I thought, why not use that instead of the usual fatty mayonnaise that I tend to make chicken […]